Emerging Labor Party To Offer Working People Political Home

ANOTHER VIEW

May 17, 1996|by GARY OLSON (A free-lance story for The Morning Call).

A rapidly growing number of Americans have lost faith in the two major political parties. In response to public fear, disgust and cynicism, some individuals and groups believe it's time to establish a third party, one that truly represents working men and women. According to recent polls, two-thirds of the population favor the creation of other options.

Potential voters realize that the coming election will feature scapegoat issues such as welfare, crime and immigration. In contrast, politicians will offer stunning silence on downsizing, unfair trade pacts, growing wage disparities, and corporate greed. A recent article in the New York Times asserted that both parties are scrambling to find a message appealing to voters alarmed by personal economic insecurity, "without offending major contributors."

According to Josh Goldstein of the Center for Responsive Politics, each party will receive $120 million this year, primarily from corporate interests. CEOs understand the two party game. In the words of Ross Perot, the CEO says, "OK, the politicians are going to push us around a little bit to look like populists. But once they get in office, we own them because we funded them." (Business Week) An article in the March/April Mother Jones magazine reports that 15 of the top 20 individual contributors in the country give their money to the Democratic Party.

Some examples include Marvin Davis (oil), Walter Shorenstein (real estate), John Connelly (riverboat casinos), Marvin Schwartz (military contractor) and William Lerach (securities law). Of the top 400 donors, over half are Democrats. In 1995, 55 percent of the "soft money" for Democrats came from corporations. Why? Because both parties look out for the interests of the same corporate elite.

This fact makes it pitiful to learn from labor journalist Jonathan Tisini that from 1979 to 1995, labor PACs spent $239 million on federal election campaigns. Virtually all of this money, plus millions in soft money, was spent on Democratic Party candidates. For this, supporters got legislation like NAFTA. Even after this folly, labor money continued to flow toward Democrats, including those who had voted against labor.

More recently, John Sweeny, the new president of the AFL-CIO and a supposed New Voice for progressive change, declared, "Labor should stop wasting our money on candidates who turn their backs on workers after they are elected." Shortly thereafter, on "Meet the Press," Sweeny sounded more like The New Void than The New Voice when he said, "President Clinton has done a great job as president and deserves out support." I would suggest that from NAFTA to health care, from labor law reform to the very role of government, Mr. Clinton has been more pro-corporate than pro-worker. Indeed, over the last four years we have seen, in Ralph Nader's words, George Ronald Clinton emerge in the White House. Mr. Clinton would barely qualify as a Rockefeller Republican in 1970.

This is not to imply that the two parties are identical twins. Political scientist Michael Parenti offers a brilliant analysis of how the game works. Every four years the elites who run the country offer the people a candidate who is terrible and promises nothing (let's say, Mr. Clinton) and then offer a second candidate who is even worse (Dole comes to mind). The voters are told, "O.K. Choose!"

At this point the single greatest inducement to participation in electoral politics enters the picture: selecting the "lesser of two evils." Of course, the illusion of choice is terribly important; otherwise people might begin to suspect that they live in a dreaded one-party state. In superficial ways the parties must be slightly different. Republicans and Democrats are fraternal as opposed to identical twins. And the Democrats must still pretend to cater to the interests of the lower half of income earners even as they refrain from challenging the overall structure. In any event, it's little wonder that as people become wise to this charade they choose to stay away from the polls. They understand that working to reform the two parties is not the answer. The two parties themselves are a major part of the problem.

There may be as many as 15 progressive congresspersons but they lack a supportive base in the Democratic Party and wander around in a political wilderness. We need a new political entity to speak for the 80 percent of the population whose interests are currently excluded from the decision making process. This party would challenge the corporate agenda and would represent the interests of all working people -- black and white, Latino and Asian, female and male.